Everyone in the Tiadun Keep is dragon-blind, even the priestesses. Darna pretends she can't see the realm's guardian dragon either – she already gets teased enough for her limp. She flees to the legendary city of Anamat, where some still see the dragons, or so the minstrels say.

On her journey, she meets Myril, an older scrappling girl with an eerie sense of hearing and frequent premonitions. Together, they hope to find their places in the city.

Then there's Iola, who actually wants to be a priestess. She's so dragon-struck that she can't see through the temples' thin veils of piety, can't see the priestesses' greed as they fleece their sweaty devotees.

Thorat is Iola's champion. He sees dragons as much as the girls do, but unlike them he's very good at blending in with normal boys. Darna wishes he would notice her sometimes, too.

In the city, Darna strikes out on her own to find secret passageways. She scavenges for valuable scraps to sell. If she can't buy a guild apprenticeship by Midsummer, she'll be exiled from the city, unless the priestesses take her, which is the last thing she wants. So when she's offered a sack full of gold beads for a small bit of thieving, she takes her chances... and ends up angering the dragon herself. (Summary and cover courtesy of goodreads.com)

I read this book and it’s sequel “Priestess of the Dragon Temple” and I have to say it makes a lot more sense in the context of at least the first two books. I’m sure that the book will have even more of its questions answered once the series is complete (planned 5 books). My complaint with the first book though, is that very little was explained. Even just a few explanations of what a scrapplings are and WHY they go to the city would have been huge. Instead, the readers has to figure this out on their own, but there’s no big reveal once you figure it out.

The general world building was interesting and there certainly are aspects that were intriguing, but overall this was a book that could have been shortened a lot. The conflict was minimal and is more of a back-story than something that’s truly needed to start the over-arching story. I think this would have been better as a novella prequel. Regardless, I’d recommend starting with the second book and then going back to read this if you want to know of what happened first.

Warning: contains some violence

Rating: 3 stars!

Who should read it? Fantasy Fans, but I’d almost recommend starting with the second book